104 



and by his underparts being less marked with grey than the 

 female. 



When offered food, the female was very bold, opening her 

 wings, fluttering them, and squeaking for food like a spoilt kitten. 

 The male Woodchat was quieter and less bold. He generally 

 selected the largest morsels of meat, and devoured them leisurely, 

 holding them between the toes of his left foot. The greedier 

 female chose smaller morsels of food, in order to bolt them as 

 rapidly as possible. They drank very little. Indeed, I never saw 

 the male drink between August loth, when I obtained them, and 

 August 17th. As it happened, we left Geneva on August nth for 

 St. Beatenberg, on the mountain side, above Interlaken. The 

 Woodchats appeared to feel acutely the fall in temperature. On 

 August 1 8th, a Bluebottle approaching the birds, the female 

 Woodchat made many futile efforts to seize it. The male was 

 cannier. He watched the fly enter the cage, allowed it to settle 

 on the meat, and when he saw that it was off its guard, down he 

 dropped on it and secured it as it rose. But his sister bird dashed 

 at him, snatched it out of his beak, and carried it off to the top 

 perch, where she transferred it to a foot and devoured it com- 

 placently. On August 1 6th, she caught an Earwig, which promptly 

 vanished down her throat. On August 25th, I picked up a huge 

 green Grasshopper, and as he had lost several legs, I took him to the 

 Woodchats. They had a sharp tussle for it, in which the female 

 carried off the remaining leg, and crushing it in her beak, devoured 

 it in spite of its barbs. The male killed the insect by pinching the 

 abdomen, after which he swallowed it piecemeal, the abdomen 

 first, then the head, and last of all the thorax. On August 21st, 

 the female in my presence carried five or six small pieces of meat 

 from the food trough to the first perch, and then hung them in a 

 row over the wire frame-work of the cage. I had repeatedly seen 

 them thus suspended, but had not seen them being hung before. 

 I therefore dislodged them, but the female Woodchat dashed down 

 after them, and replaced them as she had arranged them pre- 

 viously. 



I may remark that these Woodchats, like my Red-backed 



